The purchase of the circus furnished amusement for the village for many
a day afterward. During the month that followed the event every citizen
who had any appreciation for the droll things of life looked in at the
store and had some dry remark to make in regard to the deal. Fred Dill,
the clerk of the court and wag of the place, had a new suggestion to
make each day as he went to his work. There were certain village freaks
he declared who would be drawing-cards on the road and who would work
simply for their board and clothes.
But Henley was wisely keeping his own counsel. His underlying wisdom
began to show itself one day early in June when there was a widely
advertised sale of horses in the square. Farmers came for miles around
to sell, swap, or buy, and buyers for city persons were on hand with
plenty of ready money. The strangers in town saw nothing remarkable in
the fact, but the knowing ones stood open-mouthed when Henley's negro
assistants led six well-groomed horses into the square. The Chester band
played in the balcony of the court-house, and Henley's exhibit kept gay
and sprightly step to the music, as if glad to be once more in their
accustomed element. The mane of each animal was decorated with a blue
ribbon bow, to which was fastened a card holding the price asked. In no
case was it low, and yet when the day was over Henley had completely
sold out, and in the presence of many admiring witnesses whom he could
hardly shake off he had banked a prodigious roll of currency.
The tide of opinion had turned. From ridicule it had swept with
eager-eyed conviction to vast local pride in Henley as a native product.
From that day on the remaining items of the circus property were
regarded with growing interest. Would Henley actually triumph all
through? became the question the villagers asked one another as if it
were a game they, themselves, were playing. There was much general
discussion over what, after all, really was the "hardest stock" of the
lot, and the general consensus of opinion had decided that it was
perhaps the three wagons, which were too heavy and cumbersome for any
ordinary use. And this view was held till one day when the well-dressed
representative of a gang of men working on a new railway over the
mountain came and took a look at the wagons. They were almost too heavy,
he said, but they might be made to answer his purpose in trucking ties
along the new road. He had offered twice as much as Henley had paid for
them, and yet the latter's laugh of open derision could have been heard
across the street.
"I see you don't want my wagons," he smiled, as he cordially patted the
stranger on the shoulder. "You want your company to spend their money on
them light, painted things that bust in the sun and break down if you
run 'em on anything but a plank floor."
The customer thought too well of himself to realize that he was under
Henley's spell. "How much do you hold them at?" he asked.
Henley mentioned a price which was fully four times what they had cost
him, and he did it in a tone of supreme contempt for the smallness of
the figures. He added that he would never dream of letting them go so
low, but that he had no place to store them and didn't care to ship them
to Atlanta.
"Well, I'll take them," the man said. "I reckon neither of us will lose
by it."
"Well, _you_ won't, there's one thing certain about that," was the
agreeable seal Henley put on the deal as he watched the railroad man
draw out his check-book.
"I really did need one more," the purchaser remarked, "and I'm sorry you
only had three."
"Hold on, hold on," Henley said, as the other was shaking the ink down
into the tip of his fountain-pen. "Let me study a minute. You see that
lion-cage standing on that vacant lot across the street. Now, I'll tell
you what I'll do. The wagon the cage is on is pine-plank like them
you've bought. The lot it stands on belongs to Seth Woods, the
shoemaker; his shop is right around the corner behind the post-office. I
put the thing there without his consent, intending to move it right
away. I can't get away from here right at this minute, but if you'll
step in and ask him if he will consent to let the cage rest on his land
awhile I'll have a carpenter take the cage part off and you may have the
wagon at the same low figure as the others."
It was one of Henley's best dodges--this raising of apparent obstacles
between a customer and his own munificent proposals in the customer's
behalf. He had learned early in life that nothing so completely clinched
a trade as making a party to it work to bring it about. The man's eyes
twinkled as he consented. He hastened out and returned in a moment to
say that the shoemaker, with whom he had left an order for a pair of
boots, was perfectly willing for his neighbor to use the lot as long as
he liked, as he had given up all hope of ever being able to build a shop
on it, as had been his plans when he bought the property.
"Well, then, you can draw your check for the whole amount," said Henley,
in the same uneventful tone that always preceded his reception of money.
"I'll let the cage set on the edge of the sidewalk. Maybe I can induce
the town council to use it as a calaboose. The one they've got ain't
strong enough by half."
The report of the four-wheeled transfer went over the village before
nightfall, and the next morning, for the first time, Fred Dill looked in
on Henley without a smile or a joke. He eyed the storekeeper, as he
stood behind the show-case smoking a cigar, with a new and wondering
respect. Fred was beginning to see largely manifested in Henley the very
qualities which were wofully missing from his own merry and shiftless
make-up. He counted on his mental digits the remaining items of the
defunct circus--the tent, the clown's pony and cart, and the lion's den
standing open-doored like a wheelless furniture-van across the street.
And even while Dill stood there, telepathically apologetic for his past
bantering in the presence of so much incarnate shrewdness and foresight,
little Sammy Malthorn, the twelve-year-old son of the wealthiest planter
in the village, came in, as he had been doing several times a day for a
week past. His voice quivered with youthful triumph as he looked eagerly
across the show-case at the smoker.
"Well," he announced, "papa says I may have 'em. You can charge it on
his account. It was twenty-five dollars, you said."
"Yes, twenty-five to _you_, Sammy boy," Henley laughed easily. "Pomp
will go with you to the stable and hitch 'im up. You'd better let me put
in a ten-cent box of axle-grease for them wheels. If you haven't got the
dime handy I can add it on the bill. I'd hate to see as fine a rig as
that going through town squeaking like a rusty wheelbarrow."
"All right," responded the proud owner of the pony and cart. "Pomp will
get it for me."
"Good Lord!" Fred Dill said in his throat, and he went at once to Seth
Woods's shoe-shop, where there was a group of loafers, and told the
last bit of news. "I begin to think, boys," he said, "that Alf Henley is
goin' to make the only money that dang circus ever made. Jest think of
it--think of a big circus, hippodrome, menagery, an' side-shows tourin'
the whole United States an' Canada without a cent of profit, an' a
mountain storekeeper in a measly hole like this gitting rich out of its
remains without turning his hand over or losin' a minute's sleep. It
looks like thar is some'n crooked in the universe."
"It's beca'se the Lord's bent on smitin' sech cussedness with a broad
hand," said a long-faced deacon, who had come in to half-sole his own
shoes with the shoemaker's tools, and sat soaking his bits of leather in
a tub of dingy water.
"I mought take yore view of it ef the reward was bestowed in a different
quarter," Fred said, grimly. "But Alf don't go to meetin' any oftener'n
I do. Though he kin send up as good a prayer as the next one when they
force 'im to it. Boys, I'm curious to see what he will do with the tent
an' lion's cage. Nothin' would surprise me now. He's dead sure to git
profit out of 'em."